Somali migrants 'ditched' off Yemen

The United Nations refugee agency says at least 18 people have drowned in the Gulf of Aden after being forced into the sea at gunpoint by people smugglers who had promised to ferry them across to Yemen from the Horn of Africa.

The UNHCR said 55 of the illegal immigrants survived, swimming 10 kilometres (six miles) to the Yemeni shore and another 27 were missing.

It said most of the refugees on the boat were Somalis and Ethiopians, and most of those who drowned were said to be women and children.

The agency said it knew of plenty of other cases of people smugglers forcing their passengers to jump ship at sea so that they could evade Yemeni coastal patrols.

"The 100 refugees were forced by the crew under threat [at gunpoint] to throw themselves into the sea from the boat before arrival at the port of Mukalla" on the Yemeni coast, a UNHCR official said.

Last month, 30 Ethiopian and Somalian refugees trying to enter Yemen were also forced to jump off a boat in the Gulf of Aden, and at least 12 of them drowned, according to the UNHCR.

The refugees had paid the owner of the boat to take them to Yemen to escape difficult economic conditions in Somalia.

Somalia has been wracked by civil war for more than a decade.